1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved solar thermal collector absorber and distribution means which allows for higher performance, greater design flexibility, easy repair, reduced shipping costs and easy assembly of the system for greater cost effectiveness and practical application by the user for pool, spa, domestic, commercial, institutional, farm and other water heating applications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The solar pool water heating market, which is the most immediate application of the invention, is a proven and very stable market with millions of dollars in sales annually, this superior product will have an immediate and large market available for distribution of its technically and economically superior product. The purpose of this product is to make the highest performance solar pool heating product available using a large "wetted area" format while eliminating the major problems associated with the use of that format by other manufacturers.
The highest performance rated solar pool heating product on the market today is an EPDM individual tube mat with a rating of 1,027 BTU's per square-foot per day. This is done with a series of eighteen 5/16" individual tubes making a 6" wide mat strip. These eighteen tubes are then pressed over eighteen tiny and very fragile plastic nipples in a 13.25" long header. Serious problems exist in this design in that the nipples break easily and when in operation can clog easily. In addition the EPDM tube is adhered to the plastic nipple with a powerful and very nasty to use semi-instant glue which is very unpleasant, very messy and toxic to use. The header is prone to failure as the headers have failed due to the ABS glue continuing to eat through the plastic socket. It this happens or worse yet, a leak is found on assembly, the entire series of sections needs to be cut out and completely redone. In short this system is the ultimate in an "unforgiving" design and begs for the improvements set forth in the invention.
Another product, SolaRoll.TM. and other similar products use a 4 to 6 tube design that suffers from lower performance because they have a large amount of solar surface area occupied by poor energy conducting rubber webbing between the active solar collecting tubes.
Other pool heating products such as the Faico, Solar Industries or other similar products are single piece units which are large and require many holes or expensive mounting racks to be secured to the roof as well as a roof space that is uninterrupted by valleys, sewer pipes, vents and so on whereas the invention can easily go over or around such obstacles and can be installed with no roof penetrations or mounting racks. Most current systems require expensive shipment by truck whereby the invention can easily be shipped by low cost parcel service (like UPS) and assembled by one or more people on site.
The truly great difference is in the clever design which makes the systems flexibility particularly "user friendly" and the embodiments allowing for this user friendliness is what this patent seeks to protect. This design is the results of years of intensive work in the solar water heating field and solves crucial design problems. This invention overcomes the weaknesses of other product design problems in an elegant, manner which allows for greater performance due to larger or multiple water channels per tube, ease of installation, repair, and much greater overall flexibility.